Placement students unveil museum displays

In August 2024, two placement students undertaking Museum Studies at the University of Leicester have worked with the Lapworth Museum of Geology to produce their own displays. These will be used on behind-the-scenes tours to engage the Museum's diverse audiences over the next year.

Oscar

Coming from a background of studying English Literature and Philosophy, fossils and minerals were not something that I was particularly knowledgeable on. However, rather than this be a setback, this presented me with the ideal possibility to produce an ambitious cabinet that seeks to reconsider the way in which we can see fossils in more of an emotive and literary way. This led me to the Lapworth’s fossils from the Carboniferous (a time in which Earth’s climate was much warmer and was populated by vast flora) and my idea of newly exploring the connection between nature and poetry using a selection of fossil plants.

For my cabinet, I chose three groups of Carboniferous plants and linked them to a modern-day relative – Calamites to Horsetails, Seed Ferns to Bracken Fern, and Conifers to Red Pine – which were also then linked to a poem that concerned each plant’s modern-day relative. Each of the three sets are placed evenly but distinctly for the visitor to easily see the variations in the plants in both how they once were in some of their earliest forms, and how the modern-day relatives compare. I chose this means of presentation because I believe it serves as a useful way to better bring the fossils into the present, by establishing a visual and literary bridge across time to provide a point of comparison and discussion for visitors.

My hope is that focussing on the relationship between nature and poetry will resonate with audiences through offering an alternative, emotive approach to fossils and the past. And in utilising poetry, I believe the themes of loss, memory, and endurance can also be considered and mentally taken beyond the cabinet.

This exercise has helped me to really engage myself with the Lapworth’s collection whilst teaching me a great deal about the Carboniferous plants. It has also aided me in being able to better articulate my ideas and apply myself to new areas of interest.

William

This year, palaeontology celebrates its 200th year as a recognized science. During that time, ideas, techniques, and discoveries have dramatically changed, along with our perception of long-extinct organisms. During the Victorian period, palaeontology reached its ‘Golden Age’ as a science. Still, even then, people were very new to the field and had only a basic understanding and imagination of these creatures. My display is designed around this simple theme: ‘How did they see it, compared to what we know now?’ – and there is no better way to display this than with the marine reptiles of the Jurassic, which were among the most plentiful fossils during this time. Here, we can see in this small collection of marine Jurassic fossils how much our interpretation of these animals has changed over the past 200 years. This is why it’s so important we can see and realize how things change over time and that simply seeing something at one time may not be enough to the fully understand it.

The display was designed to rely more on imagery and specimens rather than text, as this was designed around the more visual aspect of seeing how these animals' appearances changed over time into something new. This also allows more people to look at these things rather than read; leaning towards more images and specimens draws people in and encourages continued interest in the piece, with people able to form their own ideas and opinions. It helps resonate that ideas and images created in the past are constantly changing in the future, with new information, discoveries, and technology learning new things. This causes us to change our outlook and ideas about things, encouraging freedom and rethinking of subjects that can be taken away. This exercise has also taught me to focus more on abstract and self-teaching techniques when addressing audiences, with the feedback and review given to this display helping me understand and point out any improvements needed in future projects.